No I would quit the game if I had to grind for new Gear everytime I want to enter a dungeon.
I'm quite aware of that, and i do feel that the cost is exaggerated -unless of course it happens to be exceptionally expensive on your sever- but even then, you can get around that. Even so, not all fragments are the same price - the very best fragments aren't even needed, strictly speaking in savage content, hell if cost is such a an issue, run the fairly decent most half or even sometimes. So yes, it really is a viable solution for anyone who cares at all about put in a half decent effort.
It's not that complicated. Me using an essence will shave maybe a minute off the run. In order to get that essence I'll need to spend maybe 10 minutes farming the content I don't like, and it's still RNG so who knows, might not even get what I need.
Make at least the standard essences something you unlock and always have access to and people will use them. Force people to keep circling back to SF to farm them and most people won't bother, because it's a negative time investment.
Though if you spend the time farming them out then join the PF you can blitz through the content at a small price of dealing with the setup grind.
Though even using your situation if more people used essences then you will not be the only one using the essences then everyone's time in yhe content would be overall shorter. This idea of well if only I use it does not change much of everything true, though since many think like that yet still complain about the content just baffles me.
The funny thing is that even if everyone in DF was using essences farming them would still be a negative time investment. Mathematically speaking, in a short run your contribution counts for even less time, so instead of saving a minute by using an essence you've saved maybe 30 seconds. Bozja is just very poorly designed content from a time investment/rewards standpoint. It'll ALWAYS be more efficient for you to do the bare minimum. Don't get mad at the players who were smart enough to realize it, get mad at SE for designing it that way.
As for PF; static groups who all agree to go in 100% will always set the efficiency curve. If you can get into one and stomach the rigidity and scheduling then yes, that would be the most efficient thing to do. People are upset that no one uses essences in DF, though. I'm just explaining why they don't.
I don't know if people can be mad at SE, I think SE simply overestimated their playerbase.
On an individual basis SE made farming essences less efficient than running content without them. Any player with half a brain who realizes this isn't going to bother farming essences for DF.
This is SE's incompetent design, so yea blame them. People who spent time farming essences specifically for DF DR just kind of screwed themselves over by not doing the math, or not understanding it, and I guess they're a little bitter about it.
The thing is, they assumed whole playerbase is like those we see in japanese community: team based efforts. But because the game houses more than just japanese community, this of course falls apart when it come across to the more individualistic community: NA server (can’t speak for EU cause I have no idea)